Idioms The Specific Translation Problems Occurring in the Students’ Translating Process

39 The total problems found in the students’ translation work papers were 22 problems. From all types of problems in students’ translation, collocations, proverbs, formality vs. informality, style of fronting, passive and active style did not exist. As stated previously in Chapter III, after the frequency of each type of the problems was counted, the researcher calculated its percentage to reveal the most common type of problem encountered by the students in translating SLT. To fully describe each of the identified problems, several cases of students’ specific problems in translating SLT were given based on the most to the least frequent type of problems which occured.

1. Idioms

From 22 problems which existed, 22 problems 100 belonged to translating idioms. In the source language text, there were several idioms found which made the students difficult to translate correctly. The idioms which occured in the text were the kind of phrasal verbs idiom. As Ghazala 1995 argues, “a phrasal verb is a combination of a verb + an adverb or preposition, or both an adverb and a preposition, such as up, down, on off, in, out, over, etc” p. 133. If a verb and a preposition were taken together, it would result in an idiomatic meaning which cannot be understood from the individual meaning. There were several kinds of idioms found in the source language text. Most of the students faced such problem in translating English phrasal verbs into Indonesian, because they were misleading and usually confused with prepositional verbs which were not idiomatic and considered normal, or direct meaning. Here is 40 the first example of Idiomatic Problems. Original Source Language Text Paper 2 From the original source language text, it could be seen that the sentence contained a phrasal verb which was work on. If the word work on was translated directly into Indonesian, it became bekerja pada. The student who did the task as displayed in Paper 2 translated it into Berbagai upaya untuk pekerjaan berdasarkan permasalahan jenis kelamin... This translated sentence product did not show that the student made an effort to pay a careful attention to such certain phrasal verb. The student merely applied direct translation to the phrase that it made the translation result become not clear. Furthermore, the student regarded the word work as a noun which is combined with a preposition on, that eventually he or she translated both of them as perkerjaan berdasarkan. However, not all students performed the same way in translating the phrasal verb work on. Some of them tried to translate the sentence by using a specific Indonesian diction. Efforts to work on gender issues are about understanding the roles, capacities and constraints of women, men, girls, and boys. Berbagai upaya untuk pekerjaan berdasarkan permasalahan jenis kelamin adalah tentang bagaimana memahami peran, kapasitas, dan batasan-batasan wanita, pria, perempuan, dan laki-laki. 41 Paper 3 This translation version was different from the previous paper. The student was aware of the presence of the phrasal verb work on, of which he or she translated it into Upaya-upaya untuk berkecimpung di dalam permasalahan jantina... In contrast to the previous student who considered work on as pekerjaan berdasarkan, this student was able to identify the phrasal verb and then he or she tried to find a good Indonesian diction which is berkecimpung di dalam. Another student tried to translate the sentence in another way. This students was aware of the presence of the phrasal verb, besides, he or she tried to translate the sentence semantically. Paper 12 The two previous papers indicated that the students translate the sentence literally. As Newmark 1988 argues, “literal translation is when the SLT grammatical constructions are converted to the nearest TLT equivalents, but the lexical words are again translated singly, out of context” p. 46. The student who worked on Paper 3 was able to convert the source language text equivalent to the target language text, even he or she used a certain Indonesian diction, Upaya-upaya untuk berkecimpung di dalam permasalahan jantina adalah tentang bagaimana kita memahami peran, kapasitas, dan batasan-batasan atas wanita, pria, anak perempuan, dan anak laki-laki. Hal-hal yang perlu dipahami dalam permasalahan jenis kelamin adalah pemahaman tentang peran, kapasitas dan batasan-batasan yang dimiliki wanita, pria, anak perempuan, dan anak laki-laki. 42 berkecimpung. However, this kind of way in translating the sentence was still too literal because the translator only appropriately adjusted the translated sentence after converting it word by word. Nevertheless, the student who worked on Paper 12 performed a different way in translating the sentence, he or she made it into Hal-hal yang perlu dipahami dalam permasalahan jenis kelamin... This student did not put any Indonesian words which have related meaning with bekerja pada. He or she simply used perlu dipahami dalam in the translated text. Here is the second example of Idiomatic Problems. Original Source Language Text 1 2 Paper 4 This original source language sentence had one phrase which indicated the presence of phrasal verb, that was addressing to. The combination of verb and preposition addressing to contains idiomatic meaning of which it had some specific meanings. The student who worked on Paper 4 translated the idiomatic sentence into Banyak yang memperdebatkan bahwa menunjukkan permasalahan jantina dalam pemrograman adalah... Again, this translation product did not indicate that the translator noticed the presence of phrasal verb addressing to. Literally, the word address becomes menunjukkan or mengalamatkan if it was translated into Indonesian. However, a translator could Many argue that addressing gender issues to programming is akin to ‘social engineering’ and goes against cultural norms in different societies. Banyak yang memperdebatkan bahwa menunjukkan permasalahan jantina dalam pemrograman adalah seperti rekayasa sosial dan melawan norma kebudayaan dalam masyarakat yang berbeda. 43 not merely convert the word address into direct meaning menunjukkan or mengalamatkan if it was out of context. Nonetheless, some other students had tried to fully identify the presence of the phrasal verb addressing to. The students did it by understanding the fact that addressting to means to turn ones complete attention to something, such as a problem or an issue. Paper 1 Although still literal, the student who worked on Paper 1 did not convert the phrasal verb addressing to directly into menunjukkan. This student was aware of the presence of phrasal verb addressing to, and then he or she eventually seeked for another appropriate Indonesian diction, which was menangani. Here is the third example of Idiomatic Problems. Original Source Language Text 3 Paper 1 Paper 1 Another idiom was found in the original source language text. In this example, there is one phrasal verb which indicates an idiomatic meaning, which was striving towards. Surprisingly, most of the students did not notice that the Banyak yang berpendapat bahwa menangani masalah jantina itu mirip dengan tekhnik sosial dan bertentangan dengan norma-norma budaya dalam masyarakat yang berbeda. Striving towards gender equality has two main strategies: gender mainstreaming and gender balance Perjuangan akan penyetaraan jantina memiliki dua cara: pengarusutamaan jantina dan keseimbangan jantina. 44 directed sentence contains this kind of phrasal verb. The word strive becomes berjuang if it is translated literally into Indonesian. This problem happened to the student who did the translation work as displayed in Paper 1. Ignoring the phrasal verb striving towards, this student directly translated it into perjuangan akan. Here is the fourth example of Idiomatic Problems. Original Source Language Text 3 4 Paper 2 5 6 Still associated with phrasal verb, there was another phrase which had idiomatic meaning. The phrasal verb taken into account could not be directly translated into Indonesian because it would be out of context and can result a different meaning. Without noticing the presence of the phrasal verb taken into account in the sentence, the student in charge of Paper 2 translated it into diambil ke catatan. The result was considered correct if it was translated directly, literally and faithfully into Indonesian. However, the phrasal verb taken into account did not have anything to do with taking some notes or something, whereas it meant to consider someone or something. From the four examples established above, it was true that most of the students in Translation I Class C encountered problems in translating idiomatic phrases. Therefore, the students needed good solutions regarding to this problem. Ensures that people are not neglected and that all needs and vulnerabilities are taken into account Meyakinkan bahwa masyarakat tidak terabaikan dan smua kebutuhan dan kerentanan diambil ke catatan. 45 Since there were thousand combinations of verbs and prepositions which had each own meaning, it was impossible for the students to know the whole meanings out of them. However, students could learn to avoid this kind of translation mistakes by making an effort to memorize the commonly used phrasal verbs, as it is suggested by Ghazala 1995, “they are able to know and memorize the most important combinations of the common widely used phrasal verbs” p. 137. Additionally, idioms were fixed phrases that required the students the translate carefully. Students had to carefully consider the context and actively check idioms in good dictionaries.

2. Complicated Source Language Grammar